Primary school appeal - Year 3

[AshK69]

Hello,

We've recently moved from London to Manchester and our preferred school has 30 pupils in each of the two year 3 classes. As a result we have not been offered a place. However the school is not full, it is currently 5 pupils below its PAN.

I have put an appeal in and have the hearing next week.

The appeals service has sent me the admission authority statement as to why they cannot offer place for my son. We are appealing for a place in Year 3, however the case they have presented in their statement mostly makes reference to Net Capacity for children aged 3-5 years at the school. I can't work out what angle the admissions authority is coming from.

For example, the authority's statement says that admitting an additional child would cause prejudice to the provision of efficient education as follows:

"The minimum floor are space for children aged 3-5 years is 2.3 sqm, as required by EFYS framework. Currently our reception classes only have 2.2 sqm floor space per child, We currently meet the requirements for toilet provision however should any more pupils be admitted this would take over the regulatory limit of 1 toilet per 10 children. We therefore cannot accept any more children to this cohort"

(I believe for junior classes the toilet ratio is 1 per 20 pupils.) The statement continues..

"THe school does not have any additional space which is vital in reception and KS1 in order to provide all the necessary learning areas to meet the need of the early years curriculum which continues into KS1. Our reception class currently has three LAC pupils who are considered vulnerable pupils and require additional support."

These would all seem like valid arguments if we were appealing for a place in reception, Yr1 or Yr2. But we are appealing for a year 3 place so I'm struggling to see the relevance of the arguments they are presenting, and why they have made no reference to Year 3 class sizes and the floor space/toilet provision required in KS2. Why would an additional child in Year 3 impact on reception floor space when they are in separate bits of the school and have separate toilets?

Am I missing something? If anyone can help me understand the relevance of their argument it'll really help me build my case, so grateful for any thoughts.

many thanks

AshK69

I suspect someone has made an error and cut and paste the wrong appeal document!

For year 3, you need to show that the detriment to the school to admitting is less than the detriment to child in not admitting, essentially. Is there precedent for larger classes in yrs 4,5,6 for example?

You need to get back to them and explain that you are appealing for a Yr3 place and the info you have been given relates to KS1. Someone in the office has just put the pack together and not realised which year you are applying for.

I agree that someone has made a mistake. However, I disagree with the suggestion that you need to get back to them. If they put up the wrong case that is their problem, not yours.

Thanks for the replies, much appreciated.

I agree that it's likely to be a clerical error. I'm not sure what the implications are of this though. Can the admissions authority significantly change their case at the appeal hearing without sending out their revised arguments beforehand? If so it puts us in a difficult position as we won't see their revised case until the day of the hearing.

Can they ask for the hearing to be adjourned?

Patricia- The school have consistently admitted more than 30 pupils to their KS2 classes over the last 5 years. In fact they currently have 31 in a year 5 class. It's something I plan to bring up at the hearing.

Call them / email and ask for revised documents. A few people I know have had interesting conversations with Manchester LA and been given odd information !!!

If they try to change their case at the hearing you can ask the panel to either proceed with the hearing based on the LA's original case or adjourn to a later date to allow you to study their new case. In the unlikely event that the panel allows the LA to change its case without adjourning the hearing that would be grounds for a referral to the LGO if you lose the appeal.

Oh what a mess. It is tempting to leave it to the day and see the LA squirm but the most likely outcome is for the panel to adjourn the hearing until the LA produce a more appropriate case.
Certainly they should not be able to change their case on the day. If they proceed they will have to present the case as written. Most of it then becomes irrelevant and I would immediately be asking the panel to admit on the basis that the LA have not made their case to not admit, especially if they were arguing infant class size, which they would have to with a PAN of 60.
For reference the information about toilets dates from 1999, statutory instrument 2 "The education (School premises) Regulations 1999. For all pupils below the age of 5 it is one toilet for every 10 pupils and for 5 and above it is 1 toilet for every 20 pupils. Toilet areas used by pupils aged 8 or over must be separate male / female toilets.
The current EYFS framework came into existence in 2014, replacing one from 2012. Not sure how long the area quoted has been existence but it is certainly in the 2012 framework. So whilst the quote is right for reception year that there should be 2.3 sq metres per child, they can only realistically apply it to facilities that have been built since the law came into being. For them to say we cannot have more because we already break the law is ridiculous, if they want to keep to the rule then they should be running with less pupils. They cannot quote stuff like that and then ignore it themselves when it suits. They should be saying the room is small to admit any more pupils.
OP I think that you are misunderstanding the PAN figure. The published Admission Number is the number of pupils that the school has agreed to admit into the year group as a minimum. From your post that is obviously 60 (2 classes of 30). To say the school is 5 below its PAN is not correct it is I assume 5 below the Net Capacity of the school. So for a school with a PAN of 60 and 7 year groups the Net Capacity is 420. I think you are saying that because there are only 415 in the school they can admit. That is not the case as it is only about the year group that the pupil is joining. That has 60 which is the number at which the school can say they do not want to admit more. The fact that other year groups such as year 5 have classes of 31 just shows that either previous appeal panels have admitted pupils or the school themselves have admitted extra pupils (which they are allowed to do).
Mind you, given how well Manchester LA have been doing on this appeal, maybe it is them that have got the facts wrong. I also find it a cheap shot that the LA are quoting the fact that they have 3 LAC in the year group. To say they require additional support is not necessarily true and it is unfair to make comments like that.